


Sweet and Sour Pork

by jehanjetaime



Category: Les Misérables - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Gen, and Grantaire is a luckily a custodian, in which Enjolras is a mess
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-12
Updated: 2017-01-12
Packaged: 2018-09-17 01:51:00
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,931
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9298952
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jehanjetaime/pseuds/jehanjetaime
Summary: based off of the prompt: 'you found me in a mall crying over a bowl of noodles i dropped and i s2g im not usually like this im just having a really weird week’ aufeat. Hot Mess Enjolras and Head Custodian Grantaire





	

**Author's Note:**

> prompt taken from [this post](http://theappleppielifestyle.tumblr.com/post/113482576611/hot-mess-otp-aus-pt-3-i-called-the-wrong-number)
> 
> there might be a second chapter in the works, I haven't decided yet.

His hair was beautiful, cascading ribbons of golden yellow, tumbled, wild, loose, bouncing with each motion of his shoulders. His face was shining, skin burnished to a warm, welcoming brown. The rings through his furrowed brows, three each, were light blue, light pink, and white, and shaped said brows so perfectly. His lips, full; his ears small and round, studded with uncountable piercings. He wore a deep red long-sleeved shirt and jeans, with purple polka-dotted rain boots that looked a size too big. Nothing else, despite the freezing cold temperatures outside. 

And he was crying. He was crying over a spilled #4 from Wong’s Chinese - sweet and sour pork with fried brown rice. One of his hands, which looked Sharpie-stained, clutched one side of a tray, the rest of it dangling and soaked in either Sprite or Sierra Mist. It was hard to tell. The cup, too, was on the ground, the plastic top rolling away haphazardly, the straw sticking out of it colliding with the tiles in a quiet, sticky click-click-click as it turned away from the mess. A few people, a small late night spattering of shoppers spread throughout the mall food court, watched the display.

Slowly, the lid from the soda cup came to rest at the feet of an observer. But this particular observer was wearing a mall uniform - black pants, a button-up grey-green shirt, matching baseball cap - and holding a bucket and mop, complete with attached wringer. As head custodian of the Musian Center Shopping Mall, H. Grantaire (as his name tag said) could make his own schedule more often than not, which meant he gave himself the late shifts. It was just easier to work when the mall wasn’t as busy, and it kept him busy at night (when he used to get into a lot of trouble). With most of the stores closing within 45 minutes, the mall itself closing half an hour after that, it was emptying out quick and Grantaire had much more room to mop and sweep. He liked his job. He liked that he was working with his hands. He liked the pay. And he liked that his bosses had so much confidence in him that, at only 25, he had been raised up to head custodian. What he didn’t like was seeing anybody sobbing in the middle of public, over spilled mid-quality food. Especially not when that person was enchanting even during a particularly bad bout of ugly crying. 

Grantaire bent down to pick up the lid and slowly wandered to the crying man, avoiding a sticky, bright red mess. The grains of rice were impossible to avoid, but Grantaire knew that he would be the one to pick them up, so he avoided them as much as possible. As an afterthought, he took a yellow polyester pop-up sign from the side of his cart. It was emblazoned “Caution Wet Floor.”

As he dropped the four rubber feet onto the ground, the crying man looked up. “Sorry,” Grantaire said, trying not to be stunned by the beauty on that crying face, those eyes that had to have been shimmering with more than tears. “I don’t have a ‘Caution, Sweet and Sour Floor’ sign, so this one will have to do for now!”

A fat tear rolled down the man’s cheek. “Sorry,” he parroted, voice strained with the effort of trying to reign in his sobs. “I’ll do it, I’ll help…”

“...no offense,” Grantaire said, leaning against his mop, “but you don’t look in a state to be doing anything. It’s my job, anyways. Why don’t you sit down?”

It didn’t take him much convincing, but Grantaire noticed him watch the broom as he pulled it out of the slot in the back. Grantaire swept up what he could, so it would be easier to mop later on. A lot of the attention in the room was still on them, but at least the man was sitting down now. “You…” Grantaire started.

“No, not really,” the man mumbled, wiping at his face as he answered Grantaire’s unfinished question of ‘you doing okay?’ Even as he spoke, he was crying, as if his body was determined to get it all out despite what he wanted. “I’m just...having a weird week.”

Sweeping those sadly wasted, little pork dumplings into the dust pan, Grantaire cocked his head to the side. “Wanna...talk about it?” It wasn’t a weird request for him - Grantaire was a friendly guy, and he couldn’t handle it when people cried. “I mean, you don’t have to, but. You know. While I’m working.”

They were interrupted by a girl from Wong’s Chinese moving over with another tray. A replacement, she said, for the dropped one. No charge. The man tried to pay for it, but she wouldn’t hear of it. Grantaire glanced over to their little booth notched out between Taco Bell and Sbarro, where the shift manager was watching curiously. What a nice guy. The blond blew his nose as discreetly as possible, then looked at Grantaire with red eyes. “I don’t usually make a policy out of sharing my woes with strangers.”

“C’mon.” He swiped the remaining dumplings into the bin, then twisted the broom (which was sticky and would need a wash after this) in the air and let the head come to rest on his shoulder. Then he shuffled his feet a little in mimc of a dance. Sure, he was being goofy, but this other guy looked in desperate need of cheering up. “Gimme a shot,” Grantaire said, complete with one jazz hand.

And there it was. A small chuckle. “If you’re sure.”

He watched the man dig into his food like an animal, which he wondered about - was that normal for this guy, or just a result of whatever had made him bawling like a baby in the middle of a food court at 9 o’ clock on a Wednesday night to begin with? After he had swallowed a few mouthfuls of food, he looked up at Grantaire. A piece of rice stuck to his cheek in the most endearing way. “I’m...just a busy person,” he said, starting slowly. “A lot going on.”

“I could have guessed that much.” A grin. “Wait, wait. I should probably know your name before I know your life story.”

“Enjolras,” he said. “Lucien, actually but, I go by my last name. You...probably didn’t need to know that. Am I rambling?”

“Not at all. Go on, Enjolras.” Grantaire moved onto the rice, sweeping up whatever he could. He would have to clean AND brush this broom out later. But he was hardly thinking about the work - he was just interested in what had happened to make this man weep in the middle of a food court, with his hands covered in faded Sharpie words and his shoes untied, ad Grantaire had just noticed. Now that they were closer, he noticed quite a few things. That hair was partially tied up, as if it had come undone. As said, those shoes were untied. And Enjolras’ shirt was turned inside out. What in the hell had happened? Grantaire was a sucker for a good story.

“I...suppose it all started Sunday morning. I woke up late for my morning run. My FIRST morning run, forced on me by a friend.” Another mouthful of contemplation and pork. “My phone had died, after I forgot to charge it, so nothing woke me up. I had planned to have whole list of things done by noon. I woke up at 11:57am on the dot.”

Grantaire knew how THAT was. “I understand. I myself have stopped making plans before noon, to avoid feeling guilty when I sleep through them.”

A snort, not unkind, and a roll of the eyes. “Well, I usually have no problem. I had spent Saturday in Jail, however and - “

“What!? You tell a story and leave out the part where you were in JAIL!?” Grantaire missed in his sweeping and cascaded rice all over his shiny shoe.

Enjolras waved his hand, chopsticks clenched in sweet and sour stained fingers. “That was nothing, I’ve been loads of times and survived better than most people of color. Lucky, I suppose. Either way, this time it was just for obstructing traffic, it’s nothing.”

But Grantaire was gaping. “Obstructing traffic doing what?”

“Protesting. I was leading a protest against the destruction of the Plumet Park, and - “

“Plumet Park? On Saturday?” Grantaire completely stopped. That park was beloved, but some fellow or another wanted to build condos there, and a good many people around were outraged about it, including a couple of Grantaire’s friends. “Wait a second. You don’t happen to know Edgar Bossuet?”

Enjolras lowered his chopsticks. Thankfully, he had stopped crying as well, which was a relief. Grantaire was happy to know what he was partly responsible. And he was also shocked - did they both know the same person, in a city the size of this? “Actually, yes. He’s a part of the organization I founded.”

“Les Amis?” Grantaire asked. “Wait...YOU founded Les Amis? YOU’RE that man? He talks about you all of the time. Joly, too.”

“Yes, that’s me. A couple others and I founded it years ago,” Enjolras answered. Grantaire stared at him in wonder. This was the leader, whose name had never really stuck in Grantaire’s mind. But know that he knew, he thought perhaps the face seemed familiar, from the backgrounds of photos and tagged pictures on Facebook. But, of course Grantaire wouldn’t recognize him. This tear-stained, sticky, tousled man was nothing like the strong, marble leader Bossuet talked about in the locker room of the gym, Joly mentioned as he and Grantaire took their shifts at the dog shelter. That man was an image built in Grantaire’s mind from years of praise - solid, sturdy, in control. A man’s man with a strong eye, a brave heart, and a wall of steel around him, keeping himself separated. You have to, to do what he does, Joly had said. Otherwise you’d crack under the pressure. What did a man like Enjolras do, according to Grantaire’s friends? Arranged protests, clearly. Raised money to bail friend and foe alike out of prison, if they had unlawfully been arrested. Worked with police when police would help, worked against them when, more often, they would not. Lucien Enjolras was sporting a bullet wound just above his heart, supposedly, had survived a shooting on his school campus when he attempted to talk the shooter down. Lucien Enjolras advocated for peoples of all gender, races, religions, creeds. When something was of his own experience, he took center stage. When something was far outside of his wheelhouse, he helped create a space for others to speak.

According to Joly and Bossuet, Lucien Enjolras was an infallible man of steel who did little harm and took no shit.

The man in front of Grantaire had cheeks brushed with dried tears, rice stuck to his lips, sauce on his inside-out shirt, soda spilled all down his front, and looked absolutely broken. He had no commanding presence, so sense of power, and could hardly hold up his chopsticks. 

“Do they really talk about me?” Enjolras asked, even his posture curious.

“All of the time.” At this point, Grantaire switched from the broom to the mop, for sauce and the more stubborn rice. His mop - nicknamed Maryl - was as high tech as mops could get and would not take mess for an answer. “Enj says this, Enj does that. It’s all the time! Maybe that’s why it didn’t click. They call you a nickname.”

Enjolras hunched his shoulders, and Grantaire saw, for the first time, a true smile. That made HIM smile, and he put a little more effort into cleaning the floor. Success!

“Well, I...didn’t know that.”

“True as can be! But go on.”

Taking a sip of Sprite, Enjolras looked up at the domed, glass ceiling. “Well. Yes. I was arrested. I was released without becoming a hashtag. Then I slept until noon.”

Feeling cheeky, Grantaire grinned. “I thought you slept until 11:57am on the dot.”

Another roll of the eyes. “Details. Do you want the story?” An enthusiastic nod. “Alright. After my slow start on Sunday, I missed the last bus to the stop nearest to the homeless meal center - because clearly those who need food handed can just drive their Jaguars or have their chauffeurs take them to the center, let’s cut down on transportation to make it even harder for them to take advantage of what little support we give! Anyways. Anyways. I had to walk there, which compared to what those who need the services go through it is NOTHING, but still was not ideal. It’s been icy, and I must have fallen five or six times. Including the final time, which included tearing the canvas of my sneakers.”

Grantaire looked down at his spotted boots. “Is that where...those come into play?” Because he had to admit. They were sort of charming on a man that was supposed to take himself so seriously. “They don’t seem to match.”

“Yes,” Enjolras said, holding up one leg. Grantaire noticed that the knees of his jeans were torn and dirty, as was the visible skin. All of that falling? Had he not changed since Sunday? No wonder he was crying over spilled mall food. “I went into a thrift store - which I try not to do, leave those clothes for the people who need them, who can’t afford anything else - and these were the only thing they had that would fit on my feet. So I bought them, with extra socks to make them fit, and. Well. They’re shoes.”

The men shared a moment of looking at those boots. They weren’t offensive boots if one was a middle schooler or in a dance recital about ducks splashing in the rain. But on a grown man with an expression that said only ‘done with life,’ they had quite a different effect. “Indeed they are. Where did you wear them to?”

“The meal center. That was fine, I got some work done, spoke with some of the volunteers AND the patrons, it was nice. Afterwards, I meant to meet up with a friend at the library to print out our fliers. However, when I got there, the library had closed down due to a gas leak. Without my phone, I had no way of contacting said friend, or anybody. So I got a coffee and thought, I’ll just head home.”

Grantaire nodded. “That’s what I would have done.”

“And what I would have liked to do.” Wow. Enjolras could really put that food away, even while talking. Grantaire liked that. “However, I my keys were not in any of my pockets. I swore I had them when I left the house, but I guess one could never be sure. So I walked. I walked back to the library, traced my steps to the meal center, begged a custodian to let me come in after hours and look for them, then searched all around the bus stop.”

“Nothing?”

“Nothing.” He sighed and pushed voluminous curls from his face. The hair tie that was not doing it’s job fell, bounced off of his shoulder, and landed on the floor. With a small sigh, Enjolras bent down, picked it up, the proceeded to attempt taming that mane. “I would have called the bus depot, but, as you know, my phone was dead. I went to the nearest Starbucks and asked around for a charger, but my phone is too old - that’s on me, I keep forgetting to upgrade. But now I’ll have to; I lost it yesterday.”

Shit. Grantaire sort of wanted to buy him another dinner. The announcement of the stores closing in half an hour drew both of their attention.

Enjolras swore and piled the remainder of his food together in a pile. “I need to get a coat before I leave,” he said. “How’d the time get away from me?”

“You have a little time. But...uhm.” He felt a little silly, but he didn’t really want this conversation to end - Enjolras was fascinating. “I’d like to hear the rest of your story, if you don’t mind. Why don’t we meet for lunch or something?”

Enjolras’s wide eyes watched him. “...really? Well. I suppose. I mean. That sounds nice.”

Grantaire grinned. “Here, what about tomorrow?”

“Tomorrow is alright. Maybe...not at a Chinese place, though.”

His voice was so serious that Grantaire wasn’t sure if he was joking or not. “Eat the rest of THAT,” he said, pointing to what was left on Enjolras’ tray. “Then tomorrow, why don’t we go to the diner near the main library, Paul’s Corner Diner? You know where it is?”

“I do. That’s fine. Perhaps around...1?” Enjolras was speaking through hurried bites of the rest of his food. “Since you know. You don’t get out of bed until noon.”

That made Grantaire laugh. “Good memory. That sounds like a plan to me. I’ll see you then, alright?”

“Alright. Sorry, I really have to go.” Enjolras waved to him, giving a cursory glance in shame at the mess he had left on the floor, then dumped his tray and raced off for the nearest department store. 

Grantaire watched him go with a goofy smile on his face. As he went back to mopping, it was with a whistle and a mind to text Joly and Bossuet during his break.

Those two were never going to believe this.


End file.
